The Hunter Dev of Turbine, Brian 'Zombie Columbus' Aloisio released a new post about the Hunter Class. The Hunter class is said to be the most “straight forward class in Lotro (Gold), however, straightforward doesn't mean that the Hunter doesn't need some love and he also outlined the team's goals for the Hunter class when Update 2 arrives.
- Keep the Hunter a straightforward class, but add more places for advanced players to excel
- Ensure all three trait lines are attractive and reduce the number of “filler” traits
- Enhance underused skills instead of adding new skills
- General maintenance (bugfixes, tooltip enhancements, new class items etc.)
The Hunter is one of the most straightforward classes in LOTRO. Find a foe, focus up, and kill it with arrows! If your enemy didn’t die, then kill them with dual melee weapons! In groups, allies will help keep enemies from ever getting into melee range, allowing Hunters to focus on their bows. Overall, this makes the Hunter fun, effective, and easy to play.
Heart Seeker is another one of the big changes in this line. The skill was introduced a long time ago as a way to drop a LOT of damage in short time with a long cooldown. Unfortunately, level bumps and the introduction of Legendary Items caused Heart Seeker’s damage per second (DPS) to be less and less attractive. In the time a Heart Seeker induction could be completed, significant damage could be dealt by auto-attacks and other skills. Heart Seeker remains the highest damaging opener in the entire game, which gives it incredible utility in PvMP but is not often used in PvE. With this update, we’ve decided to lower the induction time and damage of Heart Seeker in a way to allow its DPS to slide higher up. In addition, we’re slashing its cooldown and giving it some combo abilities with Barbed Arrow. With these changes, we hope to make Heart Seeker a useful part of a Bow Master’s combat rotations.
